Rick and I were discussing the pains and pitfalls of our respective careers the other day.

Last week, Rick fell off of an 8 ft. ladder after losing his balance while yanking a pry-bar back and forth above his head. But his cat-like reflexes allowed him to land on his feet. He made it home with nothing more than a 12″ diameter bruise on his thigh. (Don’t ask me how).

A week prior to that, Rick had to go to the doctor after getting a glass shard in his eye. Upon initial examination, the doctor exclaimed, “What the hell did you put in your eye?!?” When Rick explained to the Doctor that he thought it was a good idea to flush his eyeball with allergy eye drops that he carried in his lunchbox, the doctor confiscated the empty bottle and informed Rick that he would be contacting the local poison control center.

Last night, Rick held his hand out, palm face-up, and pointed out all of the many gashes, slices, stains, rips and tears. He said that his hands were sore and callused, but that he had got used to the side effects of being a Glazier by now.

I told him that my hand hurt, too. I showed him the wound on my ring finger, from where I cut myself very badly with a manila file folder earlier that day. I explained to Rick that I had actually acquired two paper-related cuts on that same hand within a 24 hour period. Just thinking about those little, cream-colored devils, sliding across my flesh makes me cringe.

Bottom line is, whether you’re a Marketer or a Glazier, you really ought to wear gloves and goggles at all times.

I choose to eat like a rabbit throughout the work week, and like a teenage boy on the weekend. That’s just how I roll.

Last night, I had a hankerin’ for a Sonic chili cheese coney. And since I had a 2-4-1 coupon to compliment my urge, we decided to go for it.

*Side note: Rick hates fast food. He doesn’t like Taco Bell, he can’t stand Wendy’s, and he loathes McDonald’s – quite frankly, I’m not even sure how we fell in love in the first place.

Anyhow, we pulled up to the Sonice drive-up menu and I said, “I’ve got the 2-4-1 coupon, what else do you want?”

Rick said, “What – you mean you’re going to eat both of the foot long coney’s yourself?”

“No! I just thought you might like something in addition to your hot dog. Order whatever you want,” I replied.

He shook his head in semi-frustration and pushed the little, red button. Rick ordered our dogs and we waited.

Our total was $4.30 with the coupon – I forgot to tell you that we ordered a $1 small fry, too. Rick started counting out $1’s and asked if I had an extra. I said, “Isn’t the total $4.30?”

“Yea…but aren’t you gonna give the girl a tip?”

“For what?” I said.

Evidently, this was yet another angle of the fast food world that we disagreed upon.

I told Rick that I had no problem tipping a waiter/waitress 20-25% minimum for services rendered at a restaurant or bar. The aforementioned scenario requires time, effort, personality, customer service skills and the ability to produce a sincere, albeit fake, sparkling smile at all times. But I wasn’t so hip on giving some little car hop a 23% bonus for walking my sack of food the 15 foot distance from her kitchen to my car.

Does anybody else feel the need to forever cherish every article of underwear they’ve ever purchased in their life? Well I do. It’s the most frustrating damn thing, too. I’ve split my underwear up into two drawers – one for underwear tops and one for underwear bottoms. My problem is not that I don’t buy new underwear – It’s not like I go around wearing the rattiest, holiest, most pathetic excuses for underpants known to man. It’s just that I can’t ever seem to bring myself to actually throw any of the old ones away.

I do the same thing with my sock drawer. I tell myself, “Yay! I have new socks – I’ve really needed these because all of my old ones are all bally and thinned out and too gross to wear without shoes. But I’d better not throw those old ones out because I might need them someday!”

What am I thinking? Do I suspect that I might someday need to make an emergency tribe of sock puppets, and will therefore need to be able to access all of my old, worn out pairs for the task? Maybe I figure that since I sleep on the upper level of the house that I might need to one day, again – in an emergency situation – need to tie all of my old socks together to fashion some sort of life-saving rope device that will allow me to scale down the side of my burning house like Spiderwoman.

Whatever the case, I’ve managed to build such a collection of these old undergarments that I no longer have room in my underwear drawers for any of my belongings. It is by far one of the more ridiculous habits I have. I believe I will do a Google search to find out if some sort of USA group exists (Underwear Savers Anonymous). I probably need to hit a meeting or two.

SPECIAL BULLETIN: When an individual has a telephone squished to their ear, this is to be taken as a little, red flag that the individual is preoccupied at the moment, and should not be conversated with at that time. Think of this as the opposite of permission to strike up a conversation.

Furthermore, if this individual makes polite eye contact with you whilst she has a telephone squished to her ear, this is nothing more than a gesture of courtesy. It should not be taken as an open invitation to begin dialect.

Yes, God did bless the majority of us with two ears. But contrary to the belief of my next door neighbor, for example, those ears do not work autonomously and should not be treated as such.

My friends spend their Friday nights at fancy, uptown places like LaBodega and Figlio’s and Lidia’s. But come Friday night, in my opinion, it doesn’t get any better than Bob Evans, Merriam, KS.

Sure, the company at my favorite hot spot may not be as swanky as that of the others. But the food is phenomenal and the price is just right. The two of us can get out of there with full bellies and a $20 ticket – including tip – every time. I like the Frito Chili Salad with Avocado Ranch dressing, side of homemade blueberry bread; and Rick eats the Bob Evans Pot Roast Sandwich (I have to trade him blueberry bread for pot roast sandwich bites – he’ll have it no other way). But we have yet to try anything on their menu that isn’t fantastic.

And you might be interested to know, this particular location recently overcame some major hurdles. When we first moved to the area 2-3 years ago, we liked to hit the place up for breakfast every now and them (their pancakes completely trump IHOP, in my opinion). But the service slid so far downhill that we swore off the place and didn’t return for about 6 months.

In a random phone call that I had with the new manager about a year ago – for work-related purposes – I learned that the establishment had been suffering from very poor management issues, which in turn led to horrendous staffing issues, which in turn led to the awful service that was being delivered for a period of time. This new Nazi-manager gal was sent in from corporate to whip everybody into shape, and she’s done a real fine job.

So now the land of Bob Evans Merriam, KS is a happy place to be again.

The corporation, itself, is doing a ton of things right. They’ve launched a strong social media presence that is represented by Twitter, Facebook and three – yes, three – different blogs. Their website is sexy and easy to navigate. They’re not your run of the mill senior citizen breakfast hut, no sir.

Rockin’ website. Slammin’ menu. Oh, and did I forget to mention the table-side magician on Friday/Saturday nights?

Thanks to my Facebook wall, which posted a comment from my friend @soseman, who recieved a tip from her friend @michellelamar – I now have a new favorite site. My boss says that I should take pictures of my notes and make contributions to the site (I write many notes around this office). I like this site because it feels good to know that there are others out there who are just like me.

I remember going to the zoo when I was little. I LOVED the zoo. I’m an animal lover, anyhow. But the zoo always felt like the most exciting experience to me. My mom would pack snacks (something else I love a lot) and we would load up our little, red wagon. We would spend the whole day walking around zoo, looking at animals and eating snacks.

I always wished that there were more touchable animals, though. Petting the goats and rubbing on the cattle is better than nothing at all, I guess. But why don’t they let you touch the really cool guys? What about the giraffes? Or maybe the monkeys? Throw me a llama!

I heard about the zoo in San Diego – They let folks pay a fairly reasonable fee to participate in a “Roar and Snore.” You can go to the zoo to spend the night! What an experience. I’ve never really had a desire to visit San Diego…until now!

Today feels like a good zoo day. I wonder if my boss will understand where I’m coming from if I go tell him, “I’m leaving work to go the zoo.” I don’t have a little, red wagon. But I do have money for snacks.

My friend from the Wichita Zoo – I took this picture last time I went.

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The Raspberry Dinosaur Blog · This blog is neither informative nor is it educational. It is hardly entertaining and I think it only slightly qualifies as an actual ‘blog.’ But it is mine, nonetheless. So, here it is.